"What, you aren't _going_?" cried Kitty, aghast. "Why, I came all the way down here to see you--I'm writing a play, and you're the hero!" "Ye-es!" jeered Creede, laughing crudely. "I'm Mary's little lamb that got snatched baldheaded to make the baby laugh." "You're nothing of the kind," retorted Kitty stoutly. "You're the hero in my play that's going to be _acted_ some day on the stage. You kill a Mexican, and win a beautiful girl in the last act!" "That's good," commented Creede, smiling grimly, "but say, that Mex. will keep, won't he--because I'm due back in St. Louie." "Oh!" cried Kitty, clasping her hands in despair. "St. Louis! And won't I _ever_ see you any more?" "Well, you might," conceded the cowboy magnanimously, "if you wait around long enough." "But I _can't_ wait! I've got to finish my last act, and I came clear down here, just to hear you talk. You can't imagine how interesting you are, after living up there in the city," she added naively. "No," grumbled Creede, picking up his bridle lash, "but say, I've got to be goin'!" He hooked a boot negligently into the stirrup and looked back over his shoulder. "Anything else I can do for you?" he inquired politely. "Oh, you dear Jeff!" cried Kitty ecstatically, "yes! Do come back here and let me tell you!" He kicked his foot reluctantly out of the stirrup and stalked back, huge and commanding as ever, but with a puzzled look in his eye. "Bend your head down, so I can whisper it," she coaxed, and brute-like he bowed at her bidding. She whispered a moment eagerly, added a word, and pushed his head away. For a minute he stood there, thinking ponderously; then very deliberately he pulled his six-shooter out of his shaps and handed it over to her. "All right," he said, "but say"--he beckoned her with an inexorable jerk of the head--"what do _I_ git, now?" He looked down upon her as he had on the morning they had parted, out behind the corral, and the hot blood leaped into Kitty Bonnair's cheeks at the memory of that kiss. For a moment she hesitated, twisting her trim boot into the ground, then she drew the coveted pistol from her belt and handed it back. "Well, since you insist," he said, and very sternly he thrust the redeemed weapon back into his shaps. A change came over him as he regarded her; there was an austere tightening of his lips and his eyes glowed with a light that Kitty had never seen before.